Don't Share This
@BruceTheBlog Doesn't Care for
Overbearing Text Telling Him to Share
My nickname in high school wasn’t Snarky, but lately it might as well be. What’s gotten into me? It must be anti-social media. Or maybe it’s anti-social me, hold the -dia.
Case in point: My snarkeyes espy a headline, “How to search for old Facebook posts,” on CNet.com. It’s about a new feature that lets you search for Facebook scribblings and images that otherwise have vanished.
All I know is it was a chance for Snarky to pounce by posting on his (ie, my) Facebook page: “Just what the world has been waiting for, because social media doesn't already induce us to waste enough time as it is...”
On the Snark Scale, that merits a what--7 or 8 out of 10? But, as social media is so fond of enabling, a commenter called me on it, though in a gentlemanly way. He wrote, “The ability to search my old posts would make Facebook almost useful.”
Curses! I was outed, for he had seized upon an excellent point.
Comment Man also noted, “Some of my best writing is here and yet it seems once it's out there it's gone... The ability to bring it back for reference (or repost) is important.”
I can relate, but it’s also true that social media, as well as so-called “dark social” (eg, email), can disarm us of that diminishing commodity called Time. Our world is made much more efficient by the Internet of Everything, but the sword’s equally sharp other edge is that the information flood drowns us in distraction that needs to be reined in with no small amount of self-discipline.
Then there’s the precious oversharing that thrives on social media. I’m no less susceptible than the next person to “Hey, look at me!” posts. But my Snarky self starts to rear his ugly head when it sees those insistent and superfluous “Share This” megaphones blaring at us from posts. With embedded Share buttons on social media as common as belly buttons on humans, we don’t need an "in-your-face" graphic reminder with all the subtlety of a cattle prod, thank you very much.
I beg of you to please not add a Jumbotron-size “Share This” – or any of its variants -- when you post something that rings your chimes. Rest assured that a person who heartily agrees will share it without being told. (Even Snarky himself has been known to share posts he thinks others would agree with or enjoy.)
Conversely, to a person with no intent of sharing a post, the egregious exhortation is useless, a bit patronizing, and perhaps an invitation to do just the opposite. Is that unfair? No, it’s unshare.
If you agree, please don’t… share, that is.